Education is a lightning rod subject, with teachers, administrators, union leaders, politicians, and parents supporting sometimes wildly differentviewpoints about the most successful way to educatestudents, and by extension, their teachers. People tendto be passionate about the topic, fueled by what Purdueassociate professor Melanie Shoffner calls education’sbiggest fight: “Everyone thinks they know how to teachbecause they’ve been to school, which extends to belief ornonbelief in the need for teacher education. If you believeteaching is easy, then you don’t value why teachers need tobe prepared in pedagogy.”The faculty in Purdue’s English education programrecognize the importance of this challenge. They equipeach future instructor with a unique set of strategies toreach a diverse student population, exemplified in

Chris Laughland (BA 2006), a high school English
teacher in Arizona who took home a 2013 Milken Educator
Award, which honors top educators around the country
(see sidebar on page 21).

The subject matters

Purdue’s English education program, cooperatively
administered by the College of Liberal Arts and the
College of Education, focuses on content, ensuring
graduates are English majors in their own right, without
sacrificing pedagogy.

English education students learn not only to master
the content of English as an academic subject, but also
the nuances of teaching English through the program’s
methods courses. Courses in teaching writing, literature,
and language are required, in addition to teaching

Preparing to teach diverse
populations in domestic classrooms
is a tremendous challenge, but
Purdue’s English education students
can witness the challenge on a
greater scale by studying education
overseas.

Currently, students can study
education in India, Ireland, London,
Russia, and Tanzania. The program
Reading London, led by English
education associate professor
Melanie Shoffner, focuses on
the study and teaching of British
literature.

Shoffner takes studying abroad
seriously and has even incorporated it
into her current research, examining
the role of study abroad in pre-service teacher development.

BROADENING EDUCATION

“I’m still working on data…
it’s not cause/effect and I can’t
give you the correlation yet, but
anecdotally I can tell you there is
a difference. We know study abroad
helps our students,” she explains.

“It’s something so difficult todefine, something intangible,like confidence.”Senior Molly Miller, who iscombining her major in Englisheducation with a minor in globalstudies, spent the summer of 2013in India. A key experience for herwas visiting Salaam Baalak Trust, aschool in New Delhi for homeless,abandoned, or runaway children.

“Even with their disadvantaged
backgrounds, they were all smiling
and eager to learn,” Miller recalls.

English education student

Molly Miller visits the
Taj Mahal during a study
abroad trip to India.

Photo courtesy of Molly Miller.

“I know that was the result of somewonderful teachers, and it made mewant to inspire that kind of love oflearning in my future students.”And that is the exact resultShoffner and her colleagues hope forwhen designing these programs.

“We encourage our students to
go somewhere, anywhere, to get
a broader sense of the world and
get an understanding of the many
diversities that exist, so that they
can grasp the bigger picture and
bring it into the classroom,” she
says. “The breadth of what you
can know and what you can
experience…that’s what we want
to pass on to our students to pass
on to their students.”